Watch the fluoride debate on Citytv.
Fluoridation has a long and heated history for an element found naturally everywhere in trace amounts — in the soil, in the air we breathe and the water we drink. Fluoride, at the proper concentration, has been found to promote remineralization of teeth that are being eaten away from acids in the food we eat. Putting fluoride in drinking water keeps it in saliva and it keeps working on strengthening the teeth, reducing the likelihood of cavities.
Dental associations, including the Alberta Dental Association, support fluoridation wholeheartedly. A Health Canada panel of experts in 2007 reviewed the literature — some of which suggests a risk of cancer, kidney problems, skeletal weakness and other potential problems — and concluded it’s a safe method of improving dental health.
In the United States, the Center for Disease Control has called fluoridation one of the top 10 public health measures ever taken, improving the oral health of the population, regardless of income.
Who's Wrong? Who's Right?
Despite the official endorsements, many health care and dental professionals are concerned that we still haven’t ruled out possible links to serious health problems. A key article in Scientific American last year called for second thought about fluoride, citing opinions from experts that there are still many unanswered questions, such as possible effects on thyroid and brain activity.
Anti-fluoride groups have formed in Canada and the U.S. Home systems to filter fluoride out of tap water have become popular, and sell on the Internet for more than $600.
Fluoridation has always had its detractors. In the 1950s some accused it of being a Communist conspiracy, a suggestion made in the classic Cold War film Dr. Strangelove. Opponents showed how corrosive fluoride is by dissolving cattle bones in concentrated sodium fluoride.
The level of rhetoric has cooled since then, and the opponents are different. Rather than right-wing conspiracy theorists, opponents are more likely to eat natural foods, come from all parts of the political spectrum, and include many professionals in their ranks, including dentists.
In Canada, individual municipalities are responsible for deciding whether to fluoridate drinking water. About 60 per cent of Canadians don’t have fluoridated water, including the vast majority of residents of Quebec and British Columbia, according to a survey done by Epcor Water Services in 2006.
In Alberta, 75 per cent of residents drink fluoridated water, including one million people in the Edmonton region, where fluoride has been added to the water since 1966.
But fluoridation is under attack in some parts of Alberta. The city of Calgary, which has had fluoride in its water for 20 years, recently turned down a motion to take fluoride out of the drinking water by a 7-6 margin, and there is a campaign to get a plebiscite on the 2010 election ballot. In recent years, the towns of Drayton Valley and Hanna voted to take fluoride out of the water, while a new anti-fluoridation group has been formed in Red Deer.
Getting Alberta cities to accept fluoridation has been almost as difficult as getting a recalcitrant five-year-old to open wide for the dentist. Edmonton started putting the issue to a plebiscite in 1957, but it didn’t get approved until the third try in 1966. Calgarians didn’t opt for fluoridation until 1989.
The issue has never completely died, and some communities are opting out of fluoridation.
STORY COMMENTS (5)
No fluoride in Regina water
Jackieblue, I don't think there has ever been any fluoride in Regina's drinking water so your teeth are healthy for other reasons, probably the school dental program, where the government had dentists and hygienists come into the schools to provide free dental care to all, until the mid-80's when the Conservatives cut the program.
Open Your Eyes!
Isn't it enough that fluoridated water was used by the Nazis to pacify prisoners? Or do you think that it was for healthier teeth in starving people?
I'm the Flouride Poster Child
I could be the poster child for flouride! My parents both had terrible teeth, growing up in cities with no flouride. I grew up in Regina, where the water was flouridated. My siblings and I have EXCELLENT teeth. I've never had more than one filling in my entire life. My dentist calls my teeth "little pearls". I will always be grateful for that flouride, and disagree with all those who find it so negative.
Fluoridation NOT Cost Effective!
URGENT!… Know that the AWWA [American Water Works Association] has reported in one of their ‘Water Conservation pamphlets’ that “Less than 1% of utilities treated water is ever consumed [e.g. swallowed] by human beings.” The rest goes to landscape watering, washing uses, and down drains.
So, think of this analogy to the AWWA statement…Would anyone purchase a bottle of 100 EXPENSIVE ‘medicant’ pills, take just one and throw the rest away into our habitats only to pollute our environments? Of course NOT!
Millions of Dollars are spent to install ‘ineffective process of Fluoridation’ equipment & Systems. Billions per year are spent for purchasing phosphate mining industry Silicofluoride [e.g. an EPA ‘regulated pollutant'… classified as “hazardous waste”], and in the daily operations of delivering a never approved by FDA ‘medicant’ via public water systems for falsely proclaimed ‘Better Oral Health’. Those Millions $$$'s could have bought Oral Education for Parents & Children, Tooth brushes & non-fluoride toothpaste for ALL, and had Millions $$$'s saved by Water Bill Payers!
Swallowed fluoride is of NO benefit in preventing tooth decay!. Read this dental science report ‘declaration’ in American Dental Association Journal, July 2000.
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‘Fluoridation’ is the Worlds Most economically Wasteful, ‘dose uncontrolled’, illicit, illogical ‘medicant’ delivery system on the face of this Earth!
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NEVER SWALLOW ANY FLUORIDE !
Flouridation
After switching my drinking water from tap to flouride free delivery water, my general energy level has increased 110%. The water is soft, and easily picks up essential minerals in my mineralizer canister.
Sodium flouride is a by-product of nuclear waste. Fluoride exposure disrupts the synthesis of collagen and leads to the breakdown of collagen in bone, tendon, muscle, skin, cartilage, lungs, kidney and trachea. Fluoride confuses the immune system and causes it to attack the body's own tissues, and increases the tumor growth rate in cancer prone individuals. Fluoride inhibits antibody formation in the blood. Fluoride depresses thyroid activity. Fluoride promotes development of bone cancer. Fluoride ingestion from mouth rinses and dentifrices in children is extremely hazardous to biological development, life span and general health. Fluorides are medically categorized as protoplasmic poisons, which is why they are used to kill rodents. There is no scientific data that shows that fluoride mouth rinses and tablets are safe for human use.
"Fluoridation is the greatest case of scientific fraud of this century" Robert Carlton, Ph. D., former U. S. EPA scientist on " Marketplace" Canadian Broadcast Company, Nov. 24, 1992
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